Isn't that Eric guy some kinda partner of yours? Do you have or have you had any employees ever in the huge span of ONE year you have been in your own business? As usual you giving advice when you have little or no experience.
Again....tree guys are gonna fight sometimes....they shouldn't fight sometimes but the reality is they will fight sometimes. The gm doesn't lower the piece enough, almost causing the climber to get squashed for example or the climber is a tyrant with an inferiority complex .......or both (or both are on a bad hangover....etc etc). If the boss is on the job he or someone intervenes hopefully to preserve appearance to the ho.
The guy you were employeed by in the other 4 ? years you have been in biz has a (MILLION$) dollars worth of equipment? Is that new value or current? What's he got worth a million dollars with his 5 man crew?
I was commenting on how other crews I have been on work, TV. The first guy I worked for had a very hands off approach and many guys and his jobsites were very disorganized. He was on the jobsite maybe an hour a day, yet he did less business then my current operation does. Can't quite fathom what kept him so busy especially compared to the second guy I worked for who was on site 95% of the time. And for your information I started with the second guy in '03 after working a year for the other guy. As far as equipment, I'm not going to look up the exact retail of each piece on the current market, it's been about 2 years since I did that, but yes, 2 years ago I arrived at a figure over a mil when adding them up. The point I was making (although it appears I misread a bit of greenbeans earlier post ) was that a hands off approach to management is a bad idea. Being on both types of crews and looking at the success of the one vs. the absolute failure of the other shows that the latter style is the better and greanbeans should make every effort to be on every job all the time. This allows him to nip all arising situations in the bud and not allow them to get out of control.
You want to talk equipment and time in the biz? Both guys I worked for prior to starting a biz have owned their service for about 25 years.
1st guy with hands off approach.
A few saws
Some climbing and rigging gear
A toyota station wagon
A late 70's 1 ton
A late 70's chuck n' duck
A early 80's International flatbed
A walk behind stumpgrinder
-most equipment is in poor shape and usually takes some fiddling to operate.
2nd guy with hands on approach.
Many saws
Plenty of climbing and rigging gear
A 09 3/4 ton duramax chevy
A 00 International 4900 w/arbortech box
A 00 BC1800
A 00 International 4700 with ALC
A 00 International Paystar 5000 triaxle log truck with Prentice
A 00 SC752
A 06 John Deer Ct332 tracksteer
A 07 New Holland 190 skidsteer
A almost new Rayco T185 hydrostumper/forestry mower
A 08 TW6 with conveyor
-every piece of equipment in perfect working order ready to go at the drop of a hat.
My point, at it's root, was that unless you're running 2 or more crews and turning over at least a million a year gross you should be able to find the time to be on every jobsite and not rely on a 25 year old hot head to represent your company.
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MOXY - Save some for the trees!
